We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

A tap-in and a penalty against San Marino on Saturday, and Wayne Rooney (who will be playing in his 106th international) will surpass Sir Bobby Charlton (who also played in 106 internationals) as England's top all-time scorer, reaching the magical mark of 50 goals.

Will history be kinder to Rooney than some contemporary opinion of him? Will he be looked back on as England's greatest-ever striker?

[tee rex]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Only if he gets subbed off before the San Marino equaliser.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Will history be kinder to Rooney than some contemporary opinion of him? Will he be looked back on as England's greatest-ever striker?

as far as I can see Every man utd player is considered a useless cunt, until they either leave or retire, on which point they represent a lost golden age that man utd are doomed never to be able to achieve again.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

I wonder which of the two will be remembered as having the most ridiculed hair?

[Bored Of Education]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Rooney is an odd one. As someone who never saw Gascoigne in his pomp (or at all live, in thinking about it), I remember when I first saw England play Wales at Old Trafford, I was genuinely looking forward to seeing Rooney close-up but he had a pretty decent but not earth shattering game. He was just coming off an injury and was getting lots of stick for shagging a granny, as I recall. I can't really remember him at the return but, around this time, his tendency to end up on all areas of the field to try and get the ball was making itself obvious. It's seen as a benefit by many commentators but I always found it a sign of his making the wrong decisions and lack of patience.

In saying all this, he was only 19 then but he has never really set the world alight since, has he? He has always had huge potential but just never seems to have kicked on as you would have expected him to. Bearing in mind that, at the start of Rooney's career, I was watching Giggs play who, while maybe not at his peak, was still awesome in flashes even though his potential was curtailed by playing for us.

It's not even an anti-England bias as, even though 'Gazza-mania' irritated me, you could still be fairly thrilled by him in 1996. Rooney just seems to be part of an England generation that believed its own hype. Mind you, it may be a bias about watching England/Wales games as they were boring.

[Borracho]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

We have this discussion every couple of years.

He's won the Champions League and five English titles, scored a huge number of goals and made a staggering amount of money. I think it's safe to say he was a fantastic signing for Man Utd over the course of the last decade, however much of a mess he is now.

He's failed for England, but then again, so does everybody else.

[Kevin S]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Put me in the "Rooney's England performances are much better than people seem to think they are" camp.

He's had to be England's goalscorer and playmaker rolled into one for a solid decade. He doesn't give the ball away cheaply, he plays equally well as a striker or a withdrawn forward, he links up with the wingers and midfielders, he picks the right passes and he has a ferocious shot. And he does all of this for England, pretty much every time we play.

[Ray de Galles]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

1 goal in 11 World Cup Finals games is a pretty pitiful statistic and dwarfed by Charlton and, particularly, Lineker's figures.

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[Kevin S]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

And in comparison to Charlton, yes, Rooney has scored against more lowly opponents. But against that, Charlton had the advantage of playing for an England side that was, along with Brazil and West Germany, basically one of the top teams in the world for his entire international career.

Rooney has had to be shoved around the England team to suit various managers wondering why Lampard and Gerrard do not make an effective midfield partnership.

[Ray de Galles]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

It can be qualified in any way you want but it answers the threadbait nonsense of "Will he be looked back on as England's greatest-ever striker?"

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[Kevin S]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Well, no, fair enough, it seems unlikely that he will be looked back on as the greatest.

[Borracho]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Harry Truscott wrote: 1 goal in 11 World Cup Finals games is a pretty pitiful statistic and dwarfed by Charlton and, particularly, Lineker's figures.

It certainly is. However, let's remember that Rooney was in no fit state to play at two of the three World Cups he has appeared in. And we're not talking about being overweight, we're talking about being rushed back from injury far too prematurely to suit the wishes of opportunistic managers.

[Ray de Galles]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

I refer you to my previous post.

[Sean of the Shed]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Rooney's England performances are about more than just scoring. As Kev says above they are often unfairly ridiculed, though there are occasions when he seems totally off his game. Sometimes he's not helped by the players around him either, though. One of England's biggest problems is, and has been for a long time, losing possession, and if the ball is being given away to the opposition so far down the pitch there is no wonder he sometimes looks so isolated, and no wonder he keeps tracking back deeper down the pitch.
As for goalscoring itself, had Jimmy Greaves played 106 games at his scoring rate of 44 in 57 games he would have had over 80 goals. He has to be considered as the best goalscorer/striker we had. Mortensen and Lofthouse had a better scoring rate, obviously, but they played a significantly lower number of games.

[longeared]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Kevchenko wrote: And in comparison to Charlton, yes, Rooney has scored against more lowly opponents.

Which is also a reflection of the changing nature of international football, in that England play games against a greater number of opponents now. Charlton managed 16 of his goals against the Home Nations in the British Championship. Rooney by contrast has scored all of two against the same opponents (both at Hampden Park last November)

One thing worth noting is that Rooney has scored goals consistently throughout his international career, whereas Charlton's scoring rate slowed up horribly towards the end. He managed three goals in his final nineteen internationals. Worth remembering next time someone blames Sir Alf for substituting him in Leon.

[meregreen]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

He's never been the same since he left Everton.

[Borracho]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Speaking of Lineker, which we were, only 22 of his 48 England goals were in competitive games. The other 26 were scored in friendlies.

For Rooney the figures are 34 competitive goals, 14 in friendlies.

[Ray de Galles]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Lineker got 10 goals in 12 World Cup Finals games though, which was the point being made.

[treibeis]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: Will history be kinder to Rooney than some contemporary opinion of him?

History's almost always kinder, though.

I was talking to my father not long ago about Bristol City and we both found ourselevs saying, "Mark Aizlewood, now THAT was a defender."

What we failed to mention was that, back then, Mark Aizlewood wasn't just a defender; he was a slow, dirty, tactically unaware, vertítable liability of a defender.

[beak]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Is spending a couple of years strolling around and turning puce in the sun in the Middle East the modern equivalent of spending one's summers playing in South Africa?

[Bored Of Education]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

We are into "If my granny had balls, she'd be my grandad" territory here. No matter what he has done for Manchester United, Harry's stat (which I wasn't aware of but backs up my impression) says it all really. Whoever you are playing in qualifiers, if you can't score in World Cups against the top-class teams, you really can't be seen as England's best ever striker. He may have other qualities to his game but that, at the end of the day, is his job. I don't really think anyone is belittling his career really or the rest of his game but he just doesn't belong in that category.

[Bored Of Education]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

I think the "Is Rooney the new Mark Aizlewood?" departure is a great idea.

[garcia]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

rooney would be doing well to equalise robbie keane's total of 42 competitive international goals -

total 65

WCQ 18
ECQ 21
world cup finals 3
friendlies 23

i guess he'll never catch up with that world cup finals figure now. imagine what it would do for rooney's reputation to score injury-time equalisers in the world cup against germany and spain.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Harry Truscott wrote: 1 goal in 11 World Cup Finals games is a pretty pitiful statistic and dwarfed by Charlton and, particularly, Lineker's figures.

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you do know he broke his foot six weeks before the 2006 world cup, and did his ankle eight weeks before the 2010 world cup and probably shouldn't have played in either of them.

Then in 2014 despite a record of scoring two goals in every three games under roy hodgson, rooney was put out on the left to accommodate the latest new sensation. Out on the left he was left marking two players, and even though he ran 20% further than every other player on the pitch in the heat and humidity of the amazon basin, he was crucified for a lack of effort.

If wayne rooney wanted to burnish his reputation through playing international football, he should really have chosen a better country to do it for. That whole england thing is cursed for him.

[3 Colours Red]

We all agree, Wayne is better than Bobby ...?

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: I wonder which of the two will be remembered as having the most ridiculed hair?

The fact Rooney had the vanity to undergo two long and gruelling procedures (despite looking like a Maris Piper), only to end up looking on occasion like he has a carpet sample glued to his head far surpasses even the most desperate of combovers.